Connect with us

Technology

When algorithms take the field – inside MLB’s robo-umping experiment

Baseball fans who tuned into spring training games may have noticed another new wrinkle in a sport that’s experienced a host of changes in recent years. Batters, pitchers and catchers were able to challenge a home plate umpire’s ball or strike call. Powered by Hawk-Eye ball-tracking technology, the automated ball-strike system replays the pitch trajectory […]

Published

on


Baseball fans who tuned into spring training games may have noticed another new wrinkle in a sport that’s experienced a host of changes in recent years.

Batters, pitchers and catchers were able to challenge a home plate umpire’s ball or strike call. Powered by Hawk-Eye ball-tracking technology, the automated ball-strike system replays the pitch trajectory to determine whether the umpire’s call was correct.

Advertisement

To minimize disruptions, Major League Baseball permitted each team a maximum of two failed challenges per game but allowed unlimited challenges as long as they were successful. For now, the technology has been limited to the spring exhibition games. But it could be implemented in the regular season as soon as 2026.

The impact on game length was minimal – a challenge took, on average, 13.8 seconds – and most players and managers welcomed the opportunity to question a ball or a strike call. Just over half of challenges led to overturned calls.

Future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer was among the skeptics, however.

“We’re humans,” the Toronto Blue Jays hurler said after a spring training game in which he challenged two calls and lost both to the robo umps. “Can we just be judged by humans?”

Advertisement

Technological advances that lead to fairer, more accurate calls are often seen as triumphs. But as co-editors of the recently published volume “Inventing for Sports,” which includes case studies of over 20 sports inventions, we find that new technology doesn’t mean perfect precision – nor does it necessarily lead to better competition from the fan perspective.

Cue the cameras

While playing in a cricket match in the 1990s, British computer scientist Paul Hawkins fumed over a bad call. He decided to make sure the same mistake wouldn’t happen again.

Drawing on his doctoral training in artificial intelligence, he designed an array of high-speed cameras to capture a ball’s flight path and velocity, and a software algorithm that used the data to predict the ball’s likely future path.

Advertisement

He founded Hawk-Eye Innovations Ltd. in 2001, and his first clients were cricket broadcasters who used the technology’s trajectory graphics to enhance their telecasts.

By 2006, professional tennis leagues began deploying Hawk-Eye to help officials adjudicate line calls. Cricket leagues followed in 2009, incorporating it to help umpires make what are known as “leg before wicket” calls, among others. And professional soccer leagues started using the technology in 2012 to determine whether balls cross the goal line.

A man wearing a headset works on a computer with a graphic of a tennis ball and a court on the computer screen.
A technician uses the Hawk-Eye system as part of a broadcast trial for the technology during the 2005 Masters Tennis tournament in London. Julian Finney/Getty Images

Reaction to Hawk-Eye has been mixed. In tennis, players, fans and broadcasters have generally embraced the technology. During a challenge, spectators often clap rhythmically in anticipation as the Hawk-Eye official cues up the replayed trajectory.

Advertisement

“As a player, and now as a TV commentator,” tennis legend Pam Shriver said in 2006, “I dreamed of the day when technology would take the accuracy of line calling to the next level. That day has now arrived.”

But Hawk-Eye isn’t perfect. In 2020 and 2022, the firm publicly apologized to fans of professional soccer clubs after its goal-line technology made errant calls after players congregated in the goal box and obstructed key camera sight lines.

Perfection isn’t possible

Critics have also raised more fundamental concerns.

In their 2016 book “Bad Call,” researchers Harry Collins, Robert Evans and Christopher Higgins reminded readers that Hawk-Eye is not a replay of the ball’s actual position; rather, it produces a prediction of a trajectory, based on the ball’s prior velocity, rotation and position.

Advertisement

The authors lament that Hawk-Eye and what they term “decision aids” have undermined the authority of referees and umpires, which they consider bad for the games.

Ultimately, there are no purely objective standards for fairness and accuracy in technological officiating. They are always negotiated. Even the most precise officiating innovations require human consensus to define and validate their role. Technologies like photo-finish cameras, instant replay and ball-tracking systems have improved the precision of officiating, but their deployment is shaped – and often limited – by human judgment and institutional decisions.

For example, today’s best race timing systems are accurate to 0.0001 seconds, yet Olympic sports such as swimming, track and field, and alpine skiing report results in increments of only 0.01 seconds. This can lead to situations – such as Dominique Gisin and Tina Maze’s gold medal tie in the women’s downhill ski race at the 2014 Sochi Olympics – in which the timing officials admitted that their equipment could have revealed the actual winner. But they were forced to report a dead heat under the rules established by the ski federation.

With slow-motion instant replays, determining a catch or a player’s intention for a personal foul can actually be distorted by low-speed replay, since humans aren’t adept at adjusting to shifting replay speeds.

Advertisement

One of the big issues with baseball’s automated ball-strike system has to do with the strike zone itself.

MLB’s rule book defines the strike zone as the depth and width of home plate and the vertical distance between the midpoint of a player’s torso to the point just below his knees. The interpretation of the strike zone is notoriously subjective and varies with each umpire. For example, human umpires often call a strike if the ball crosses the plate in the rear corner. However the automated ball-strike system uses an imaginary plane that bisects the middle – not the front or the rear – of home plate.

There are more complications. Since every player has a unique height, each has a unique strike zone. At the outset of spring training, each player’s height was measured – standing up without cleats – and then confirmed through a biomechanical analysis.

Black-and-white photo of very short man holding a bat in front of a kneeling catcher and crouching umpire.
Eddie Gaedel, the shortest player in major league baseball history, had a much smaller strike zone than his peers. He drew a walk in his only at-bat. Bettmann/Getty Images

But what if a player changes their batting stance and decides to crouch? What if they change their cleats and raise their strike zone by an extra quarter-inch?

Advertisement

Of course, as has been the case in tennis, soccer and other sports, Hawk-Eye can help rectify genuinely bad calls. By allowing teams to correct the most disputed calls without eliminating the human element of umpiring, MLB hopes to strike a balance between tradition and change.

Fans have the final say

Finding a balance between machine precision and the human element of baseball is crucial.

Players’ and managers’ efforts to work the umpires to contract or expand the strike zone have long been a part of the game. And fans eagerly cheer or jeer players and managers who argue with the umpires. When ejections take place, more yelling and taunting ensues.

Advertisement

Though often unacknowledged in negotiations between leagues and athletes, fan enthusiasm is a key component of whether to adopt new technology.

For example, innovative “full-body” swimsuits contributed to a wave of record-breaking finishes in the sport between 2000 and 2009. But uneven access to the newest gear raised the specter of what some called “technological doping.” World Aquatics worried that as records fell simply due to equipment innovations, spectators would stop watching and broadcast and sponsorship revenue would dry up. The swimming federation ended up banning full-body swimsuits.

Of course, algorithmic officiating differs from technologies that enhance performance and speed. But it runs a similar risk of turning off fans. So MLB, like other sports leagues, is being thrust into the role of managing technological change.

Advertisement

Assessing technologies for their immediate and long-term impact is difficult enough for large government agencies. Sports leagues lack those resources, yet are nonetheless being forced to carefully consider how they introduce and regulate various innovations.

MLB, to its credit, is proceeding incrementally. While the logical conclusion to the current automated ball-strike experiment would be fully electronic officiating, we think fans and players will resist going that far.

The league’s challenge system is a test. But the real umpires will ultimately be the fans.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Arthur Daemmrich, Arizona State University and Eric S. Hintz, Smithsonian Institution

Advertisement

Read more:

Arthur Daemmrich receives funding from the National Science Foundation and The Lemelson Foundation.

For the research underlying this article, Eric S. Hintz and the Smithsonian Institution received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Lemelson Foundation, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Nike, Inc., the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, the Shō Foundation, ConocoPhillips, and the Hopper-Dean Family Fund. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed are the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or any other funder.



Link

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Technology

The Suunto Run is built for the Strava generation

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Credit: Suunto Running has changed, and Suunto knows it. Once seen as the preserve of club athletes and endurance obsessives, running today is as much about connection, self-expression, and community as it is about competition. Suunto’s new Run […]

Published

on


When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.

 Suunto Run launch.

Credit: Suunto

Running has changed, and Suunto knows it. Once seen as the preserve of club athletes and endurance obsessives, running today is as much about connection, self-expression, and community as it is about competition.

Suunto’s new Run watch is made for this moment: light, simple, smart, and built with the Strava generation in mind.

The new running watch strips things back to what runners actually use, while still packing in smart tools to elevate every run.

It ditches ultra-adventurer frills like offline maps and instead focuses on what matters when you lace up: pace, motivation, recovery, and freedom from your phone.

At just 36 grams, it’s Suunto’s lightest watch yet. Add a 1.32″ AMOLED screen and a refreshed UI, and you get a performance wearable that’s friendly to new runners and satisfying to seasoned racers.

Suunto Run launch

Credit: Suunto

Add built-in music storage, 20-hour dual-band GPS tracking, and full Bluetooth workout headphone compatibility, and you’ve got a device that genuinely lets you leave your phone at home.

“Today, the internet, data sharing, and wearable sports technology enable new forms of community, connection, competition, and self-knowledge,” says social scientist Dr. Neil Baxter, who consulted on the project. “Running has become an enriched part of modern culture.”

Built to motivate, not just measure

That enrichment is reflected in the data, too. The Suunto app provides post-run analysis and recovery guidance and syncs to over 300 third-party platforms, including Strava, TrainingPeaks, and Komoot.

The Run also provides Training Load and heart rate recovery stats, as well as a suite of recovery tools to help you train smarter, not harder.

Suunto Run also supports 34 sports beyond running (from strength to cycling to yoga), but make no mistake: this is a runner’s watch.

The brand added a track mode, which we’ve seen cropping up in running-forward wearables more and more in recent years.

In a world of do-everything multisport monsters, the Suunto Run is refreshingly specific. It’s not trying to climb Everest. It just wants to help you crush your next 5K, beat your best time on that hill segment, or keep your run streak alive.

The Suunto Run sells for a meagre £199 in the UK and €249 in Europe – US and AU prices TBC. It will be available to buy in the EMEA region from 3 June 2025.

For more info, head over to Suunto.



Link

Continue Reading

Technology

NFL will measure first downs with Hawk-Eye with after Sony’s tech agreement

The NFL will use Hawk-Eye technology to measure the first downs in a game, replacing the chain measurements that have become slightly outdated considering the available tech nowadays. The Hawk-Eye tech will be provided by Sony. Sony have partnered with just about every major sport in the world to innovate by using their advanced technology […]

Published

on


The NFL will use Hawk-Eye technology to measure the first downs in a game, replacing the chain measurements that have become slightly outdated considering the available tech nowadays. The Hawk-Eye tech will be provided by Sony. Sony have partnered with just about every major sport in the world to innovate by using their advanced technology in real time to assist the officiating. The NFL has an established relationship with Sony since 2021 when they adopted the SMART system to combine video feeds from all of the NFL’s broadcast partners in one place. Now they have taken it a step further.

What kind of changes will the NFL implement for the future of the sport?

The NFL is evolving. To everyone’s benefit, the league has considered the ever changing reality of modern day life. The pace and innovations happening in the tech sector daily is unlike anything in history. Sony has been on the forefront of that innovation for generations now. One aspect of their business model that has served the sporting world well is their cameras.

When we consider the range of products that Sony are leading the markets with, we can understand the dominance they have in the sporting world. Sony started producing cameras in the 80’s and since then they have established themselves as a serious competitor in the camera arena. The NFL have been using their cameras in the SMART(Synchronized Multi-Angle Replay Technology) since 2021.

Sony’s incredible 8k cameras have enabled them to dominate the sport sector as they have partnerships with with 23 of the top 25 global sports leagues. Their cameras are used in soccer, tennis Grand Slams, cricket major tournaments and the Rugby World Cup. The sporting world has taken advantage of the advancements in camera technology to assist with the officiating process.

How will the NFL use Sony’s camera’s to assist the officials?

The change comes in the measuring of the first downs. The chain crew have become an icon of the game of football. The tension when the chain crew runs onto the field to measure would have millions of fans on the edge of their seats. That process will now be handled by the new Sony system specifically designed to measure the distance between the ball and first down.

The chain crew will remain on the field in a secondary capacity while the officials make use of the new Sony system being controlled from the NFL’s Art McNally GameDay Central Officiating Center (AMGC) in New York. So the adoption is a seamless and smooth transition that will benefit the sport tremendously. As with other sports, the game of football is taking full advantage of the tech available to them.

After this years annual draft and the drama that it inevitably brings, the NFL and its fans are ready to start the new season. And this year will be the first season to use the new Sony system after conclusive testing took place last year to confirm the technology’s viability. Those tests were obviously successful as the league claims measurements could be up to 60% faster this year.

What will the 2025 season have in store for the NFL and its fans across the world?

The discussion topic right now in the halls of the NFL is all the rookies and their potential. The NFL is evolving along with modern day society. The international expansion has brought a legion of fans into the sport. The standard of officiating in international sport has been improving with the use of these types of systems. Improving fairness and encouraging engagement from the fans. Long gone are the days when fans would debate over a call that changed the outcome of a game due to a mistake on the part of the officials.



Link

Continue Reading

Technology

Real-life companies pump up promotions around fictional team in new ‘F1′ movie

The real-life companies that will be sponsors in the fictional F1 movie are preparing for what they hope will be a boon for their businesses as the premiere of the forthcoming film draws closer. The movie, simply called “F1,” will hit theaters internationally June 25 and in North America on June 27. Since the plot […]

Published

on


The real-life companies that will be sponsors in the fictional F1 movie are preparing for what they hope will be a boon for their businesses as the premiere of the forthcoming film draws closer. The movie, simply called “F1,” will hit theaters internationally June 25 and in North America on June 27. Since the plot revolves around an F1 team, Apple Original Films worked to land real companies that would provide their brand to the film as sponsors of the fictional team to give it an extra bit of authenticity. Sponsors of the fictional APX (pronounced Apex) GP team include Mercedes-Benz, EA Sports, Expensify, SharkNinja, Geico, IWC and Tommy Hilfiger. Expensify, the expense tracking software company, called out the sponsorship during its Q1 earnings report last week as “possibly one of the best brand placement opportunities ever.” Sign-ups to Expensify quadrupled for a few hours last week after actor Damson Idris wore a firesuit, with Expensify’s logo prominently featured, to the Met Gala as part of a stunt with Tommy Hilfiger, according to CEO David Barrett. Barrett added in a note to investors that “this gives us incredible exposure on a global basis …. Accordingly, we are battening down the hatches in preparation for what we hope will be a wave of new leads that puts our servers, sales team, and customer success to the test.”

WAITING FOR IMPACT: S.F.-based Expensify said it has been making payments on the sponsorship “for a while,” but that it has yet to record them in earnings, so the cost remains unknown. The impact from the sponsorship will likely be felt in Q3 of this year. Expensify will record the expense the day the movie comes out, according to a transcript of what company executives said during the Q1 earnings call last week. In the movie, both road cars and the race cars driven are Mercedes, and the German carmaker also provided the safety car that is used in filming. To commemorate the movie, Mercedes announced during F1 Miami race weekend earlier this month that it will sell a limited-edition AMG GT63 APXGP Edition road car. The company is making only 52 of the 577-horsepower cars, which Car And Driver magazine expects to sell for more than $191,550, the starting price of a normal GT63. The car has gold accents to match the fictional team’s colors, and the floor mats are embroidered with the lettering “APXGP.” The center console has a badge that notes which of the 52 it is. On Mercedes-Benz USA’s website, the company has a special page for the car, along with a link to buy similarly modeled vehicles.

AS SEEN IN ‘F1′: For EA Sports, it is naturally using the movie to promote the next edition of its officially licensed F1 video game. The company says fans who pre-ordered the “F1 25” game’s “Iconic Edition” by a certain period will get access to special gameplay chapters inspired around the movie. Meanwhile, Tommy Hilfiger’s stunt with Idris at the Met Gala drew attention to the film and went viral on social media, with the company saying it was a “moment that fused high fashion with cinematic glamour.” Along with the APXGP firesuit, Idris walked the red carpet with a specialized racing helmet featuring 20,0000 Swarovski crystals attached in red, white and blue colors. Elsewhere, IWC, the longtime Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team sponsor, will have its watches worn by Brad Pitt and others in the film. It has released a couple timepieces around the movie including a $7,000 Pilot’s Watch Chronograph APXGP that has gold accents. IWC brought one of the cars used in filming to the Goodwood classic car show in the U.K. and Idris showed up alongside actress Kerry Condon to discuss their roles in the movie. Finally, F1 was selling APXGP merchandise at the F1 Miami race weekend in early May.



Link

Continue Reading

Technology

University of Florida looks at how coaches use data to help players

Dave Schlenker  |  University of Florida See the moment courtside in the Alamodome that Florida basketball won the national title The Gators defeated Houston 65-63 Monday night at the Alamodome in San Antonio to win the program’s third national championship. Two University of Florida engineering graduate students presented research at a conference in Japan on […]

Published

on


play

  • Two University of Florida engineering graduate students presented research at a conference in Japan on how coaches use data to improve athletic performance.
  • The students’ research focused on how coaches in collegiate athletics utilize data from wearable sensors and other technology.
  • The research found that coaches use data to make decisions about training, strategy, and injury prevention.

Shortly after the confetti settled over the University of Florida’s basketball championship in April, two graduate students studying artificial intelligence traveled to Japan to discuss how coaches are using data and technology to maximize player performance and safety. 

Accomplished athletes themselves, UF engineering students Mollie Brewer and Kevin Childs are co-primary investigators on a paper exploring how coaches analyze data — often from wearable sensors — to shape training and strategy and, ultimately, win more games.

If a player comes off an intense workout, for example, coaches can look at the data and determine if that player needs rest before the next game. This means successful coaches — like those coaching the championship basketball team — are adding “data analyst” to their roles. 

Brewer and Childs’ paper was selected for presentation at the renowned Association for Computing Machinery CHI conference in Yokohama, Japan, which ran April 26 to May 2. It was a big deal, not just because UF students are getting an international spotlight on their AI in athletics research but also because the pair’s very first research paper was chosen for a highly competitive world conference.

“This is a look into how coaches use technology within collegiate athletics,” Childs said. “We have a lot of studies talking to recreational athletes. We have some studies within the human computer-interaction area looking at professional sports. But we don’t really have an understanding of how technology is used in systems like collegiate athletics.”

Brewer added: “And we’re not going to lie, bringing it to a conference on the back of a national championship is even more exciting.” Brewer and Childs are Ph.D. engineering students and key players in the $2.5 million UF & Sport Collaborative initiative that, among other things, explores how AI data can maximize athletic performance and reduce injuries.

Known as the AI-Powered Athletics project, this partnership between the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering and the University Athletic Association (UAA) delves deep into wearables such as fitness trackers and other sensors attached to athletes to provide information for AI databases.  

“This paper was on the coach’s perspective of what types of technology and data are being used in collegiate athletics,” Brewer said. “We’re presenting how the landscape of data flows in this environment and also finding the opportunities to improve technology and data usage among these top-level coaches.”

The researchers worked with five teams and 17 coaches. For privacy, they were not able to reveal what teams participated. 

But a March article on floridagators.com reported UF’s basketball team utilizes data for decisions on the court and in training. Heading into the SEC Tournament in March, for example, coaches used the data to increase intensity at practices to ensure optimum stamina if the team had to play three games in three days (which it did). 

As data analysts, coaches are figuring out what the numbers mean for individual athletes, particularly the relationship between intensity and injury.“They’re intaking data from dozens of sources and processing this to figure out the optimal training plan,” Childs said. “For example, there are GPS IMUs — inertial measurement units — being worn by a lot of student athletes. They are little vests with sensors between the shoulder blades. It captures all their position data, how fast they jump, how fast they’re moving.” 

Another conclusion: Coaching is not a one-person job in collegiate athletics. 

“There’s an entire interdisciplinary team, and that information is shared among everybody to make decisions, and sometimes the same technology output is used by different roles,” Brewer said. “A dietician may use it one way. An athletic trainer may use the output for return to play, but they’re all communicating together.”

Brewer is a cyclist, and Childs was a competitive swimmer. They know the ins and outs of competition and results. This research sharpens the competitive edge, that “last-second buzzer beater — anything you can do to get that extra 1%,” Childs said.“We are so proud of Mollie and Kevin’s innovative thinking and hard work,” said Kristy Boyer, a professor in UF’s Department of Computer & Information Science and Engineering, and one of collaborators on the paper. “This project exemplifies what can happen when university faculty and innovators within the athletic association come together with a common goal.”  In addition to Brewer, Childs and Boyer, the paper’s other collaborators include Kevin Butler from the Department of Computer & Information Science and Engineering, Garrett F. Beatty from UF’s College of Health and Human Performance, Spencer Thomas from the UAA, and Jennifer Nichols, Daniel Ferris and Celeste Wilkins from UF’s J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering.

As for exploring Japan?

“The experience was amazing,” Childs said. “Some of the highlights were traveling to random spots on a map with Mollie and trying out different food. Conveyor-belt sushi offered a fun game of guessing what variety of seafood was on the plate, and I think I satisfied my yearly quota of ramen consumption.”“We loved connecting with new faces at CHI and getting inspired by the exciting research on the horizon,” Brewer added. “After our presentation, we ran out to join our new friends for a jog around the bay, just in time to catch a rare view of Mt. Fuji at sunset. It felt like the universe’s quiet nod of ‘well done.’ ” 

— Dave Schlenker is a public relations specialist for the University of Florida’s Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering.



Link

Continue Reading

Technology

Businesses, Families Get Boost in Tax Bill: Winners and Losers

Business, some workers, and parents would see tax breaks restored and credits boosted in the House Ways and Means Committee’s tax legislation that rolled out Monday. Largely extending the 2017 tax law, which skewed benefits toward wealthy individuals and corporations, the legislation has many provisions that companies pushed hard for. It also includes some of […]

Published

on


Business, some workers, and parents would see tax breaks restored and credits boosted in the House Ways and Means Committee’s tax legislation that rolled out Monday.

Largely extending the 2017 tax law, which skewed benefits toward wealthy individuals and corporations, the legislation has many provisions that companies pushed hard for. It also includes some of the provisions President Donald Trump wanted, such as reducing income tax on overtime and tips. But it also has some new taxes—on university endowments and sports owners—and it cuts billions in energy credits.

While the House version of the tax bill is a long way from becoming law—the Senate hasn’t weighed in yet—it gives a first glimpse on what parts of tax policy are on surer footing and what’s in a more precarious spot.

Here’s who won and who lost in this first version of the tax bill:

Winners

Businesses: Tuesday’s tax bill calls for keeping corporate and international tax rates steady, restoring the expiring or expired trifecta of popular business breaks and a boost in the deduction for pass-through entities. The legislation represents a hard-fought victory for companies that pushed to return them to the 2017 tax law’s original levels.

Some workers and seniors: House Republicans took the first step to deliver on Trump’s campaign promises to ease the tax burden on some workers by eliminating tax on tipped and overtime wages. The legislation also includes a break for older Americans receiving Social Security benefits.

Parents and families: Tax writers proposed a $500 boost to the current $2,000 child tax credit and made more of the credit available to low-income families. They also called for raising the estate tax exemption to $15 million, making that a permanent floor, and floating it annually after 2025 with inflation..

Multinational Corporations: House Republicans’ bill preserved the tax rates on income US companies earn abroad. It’s a win for large companies with international presences that feared lawmakers would allow the rates to increase amid a search for revenue offsets. The legislation maintained a 10.5% effective tax rate on global intangible low-taxed income, a 13.1% rate on foreign-derived intangible income, and a 10% rate on the so-called base erosion and anti-abuse tax, or BEAT. Each of these rates would have increased in 2026 without congressional intervention.

Losers

Universities: House Republicans aim to increase the tax on large private university endowments, which presents a new threat to some of the wealthiest US schools. Republicans have aggressively pursued oversight on higher education for the past several years, and their proposal creates a tiered system that imposes larger taxes based on the size of their endowments. The top tax rate would grow to 21% in for institutions with student-adjusted endowments above $2 million.

Tax-and-climate law: Former President Joe Biden’s signature legislation known as the Inflation Reduction Act takes a serious hit in the House draft, as Republicans utilize some of its provisions for savings as they enact their tax law. The proposed legislation calls for clawing back hundreds of billions of dollars in energy credits by terminating a consumer credit for electric vehicles and credits for making homes more efficient. It also calls for phasing out and restricting energy production and investment credits, while modifying and extending biofuel production credits for four years.

Sports Team Owners: People who own sports franchises will only be able to write off half of the declining value of their franchises, a direct shot at Trump’s pledge to target “special tax breaks” for a corner of the billionaire class. The tax writers called for limiting Internal Revenue Code Section 197‘s amortization rules on intangible assets of franchises like football, basketball, baseball, hockey, and soccer to “50% of the adjusted basis.”

Direct File: If the proposed tax legislation were to become law, the free electronic filing program that allowed taxpayers to directly submit their federal return with the IRS would be dead within a month. Tuesday’s proposal calls on the Treasury Department to terminate the program within 30 days of enactment, and prescribes a task force to design a public-private partnership to replace the IRS’s existing free-filing options.

Headed to Overtime

State and Local Tax Deduction: One of the stickiest topics is the question of whether to lift the $10,000 federal cap on the state and local tax deduction, which has largely affected people living in high-tax states. The legislation proposes raising the SALT deduction ceiling to $30,000, but it would limit the write-off to taxpayers earning less than $400,000. While it’s triple the current cap, it’s not clear whether the blue-state Republicans pushing for a higher cap will accept it after some voiced their rejection of that figure after last week.



Link

Continue Reading

Technology

Growl Starts Pre-Orders for AI-Powered Boxing Bag, Sees Early Traction

Designed to make boxing more exciting and accessible, Growl projects a virtual boxing coach into people’s living rooms Connected boxing startup Growl has begun taking pre-orders on its flagship product: an AI-powered punching bag that projects a life-sized virtual boxing coach into people’s living rooms. Pre-orders are available as part of a Kickstarter campaign that […]

Published

on


Designed to make boxing more exciting and accessible, Growl projects a virtual boxing coach into people’s living rooms

Connected boxing startup Growl has begun taking pre-orders on its flagship product: an AI-powered punching bag that projects a life-sized virtual boxing coach into people’s living rooms.

Pre-orders are available as part of a Kickstarter campaign that launched this week; Growl already had 58 backers and over $144,000 pledged as of late Tuesday morning, far exceeding the campaign’s $20,000 goal. The company also received close to 1,000 VIP pre-reservations before launching its campaign. 

Growl’s Kickstarter campaign runs until June 14. 

Founded by Léo Desrumaux and Nicolas de Maubeuge as a way to make boxing more exciting and accessible to newcomers, Growl raised $4.75 million in seed funding in December as it looks to become the next big product in connected fitness. 

“Our belief is that boxing has this uncanny, universal touch and potential,” Desrumaux told Athletech News in December. “You can realize that universal touch if you make it fun and accessible.”

Growl uses 3D motion tracking to capture punches and AI computing to project virtual coaches directly onto the bag’s surface, allowing users to box with virtual coaches and play interactive boxing games. Growl also coaches users on traditional fitness movements like bodyweight squats, push-ups and dumbbell exercises.

Growl boxing bag hangs on a wall
credit: GROWL
See Also


The Austin, Texas, and Paris, France-based company has been backed by UFC heavyweight fighter Ciryl Gane, who was part of December’s funding round, and its executive team includes former talent from Peloton, Tonal and Aescape. 

On Kickstarter, boxing and fitness enthusiasts can pre-order Growl for plans starting at $2,449, around 50% off the bag’s planned $4,949 MSRP. Those who place a Kickstarter order can also receive perks like a free 12-month subscription for premium content and a 30-day risk-free trial.

Growl aims to begin shipping its product in February 2026. 





Link

Continue Reading

Most Viewed Posts

Trending